Lamb in Breadcrumbs
by Ellenka
Summary: Six times Peeta Mellark experiences a moment of doubt, and the one time that exonerates them all. All-in-one-shot.


**Disclaimer:** Characters, situations and dialogue lines you recognize belong to Suzanne Collins. Quoted lyrics are taken from "Gethsemane" by A. L. Weber and T. Rice. Also, you can find little nods to 1984, E. A. Poe and Pink Floyd if you look hard enough.

**A/N:** Once again, I succumbed to an unexpected plot-bun attack and took the "Write what you can't" challenge a bit too literally. A for all intents and purposes canon-compliant drabble collection from Peeta's POV ensued. I blame a certain iTunes shuffle incident and wash my hands ;)

* * *

><p><strong>Lamb in Breadcrumbs<strong>

**(Six times Peeta Mellark experiences a moment of doubt and the one time that exonerates them all)**

**/**

**001. Breadboy?**

_Can you show me now  
>That I would not be killed in vain?<em>

/

Katniss Everdeen.

The girl with the song.

She enchanted me so long ago, with a melody that transported me somewhere wonderful, to a place where I wanted to be.

To a place where I wanted to be_ with her_.

I cherished the spell and never wanted to break it, though she hardly ever reinforced it with a passing glance.

Sheltered in my heart among my most precious hopes and dreams, the childish infatuation grew into love.

Innocent, selfless, irrational. Perhaps misguided.

_Love_.

/

As I make my shaky way toward the reaping stage to join her, I recall the only moment of real interaction we ever shared.

A little over five years ago, she appeared in our backyard, starved and shivering and_ desperate_. I burned two loaves of bread, because I could think of no other way to smuggle them from under the watchful gaze of my mother and give them to her. I knew I had to do it, regardless of the punishment that would surely follow.

The next day, Katniss looked at me for a single moment, then her brow creased into a familiar scowl and her eyes focused on something tiny on the ground. I tried to frown myself, but the pain in my swollen eye stopped me.

_Did it matter to her at all? Did I save her like I hoped to?_

And even if the answers were positive… does she remember _now_?

Does she remember the boy with the bread?

A jumble of emotions swirls in her eyes as we shake hands; maybe recognition, and maybe just regret.

Perhaps she just hopes that somebody else would kill me.

After all, nobody would like to come home with the blood of their district partner on their hands.

_What would she do to return home?_

Whatever it is, I know deep inside that I would do anything to help her.

This time I wouldn't even expect gratitude.

There's no place for such sentiments in the Hunger Games, right?

Definitely not for those who want to win in the usual sense of the word.

But for me, victory would mean saving _her_.

How crazy.

Could it even be true?

* * *

><p><strong>002. Tribute?<strong>

_Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me  
>Nail me to their tree<em>

/

Of all circumstances that could have brought us together, fate chose the one that guarantees us no future.

The Hunger Games.

She volunteered and I've been reaped.

For some reason, joining her on the journey with no happy return reduces the dread of looming death almost to insignificance.

I know I stand no chance to win on my own, not against the Careers, not even against whatever dangers the Arena may hold. I could die for nothing, as a piece in their Games, a sacrifice for somebody's twisted pleasure. Or I could defy their barbarian rules and die for _her_.

Would I die for her?

My brain tells me I hardly know her.

Then why does my heart tell me to do anything to save her, even die?

Because I love her, more with every minute we spend together, and every distrustful scowl she sends my way.

I let the heart prevail, and harness all the skills and wits I posses.

I have to save her.

/

The decision was too easy, and just as I anticipated, it led me to the grave.

I declared my love for her. I killed for her. I lied for her. I watched out for her the night I spent with the Careers under the tree we'd chased her to. I didn't warn them when she dropped the tracker jacker nest, and I hindered Cato with my own body when she needed time to extricate the bow from Glimmer. I urged her to flee.

Cato slashed at me with his sword, all but nailing me to the tree, but the poison-delirium overwhelmed him before he could finish me off.

From the tree, I crawled to a muddy grave on the riverbank and disguised myself to the best of my ability, even though I knew I couldn't hide from death.

All I wished for was one more glimpse of her face, _real_, not one of the illusions that haunted and taunted me in daydreams and nightmares and hallucinations alike.

/

Here she is.

_Real_.

My last wish, my last glimpse, my own scowling angel of death.

I stare at her from the mud, awaiting eternal relief from my pain.

Death by her hand would be the sweetest reward now.

I'd die as I lived, I'd die loving her.

"You here to finish me off, Sweetheart?" I choke out.

She shakes her head.

What else, then?

What more can I do for her?

After having made peace with death, I almost fear the answer.

* * *

><p><strong>003. Victor?<strong>

_Then I was inspired  
>Now I'm sad and tired<em>

/

And my fear proves founded, after the most wonderful time I believed it might have been phantom.

"It was all for the Games," I say when the ugly truth finally dawns on me. "How you acted."

"Not all of it," she says, tightly holding onto the flowers I'd picked for her, white and pink like her last interview dress. She'd accepted them with a pensive frown, as if they reminded her of something… _someone_… else. Someone she wants to return to.

"Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is what s going to be left when we get home?" I ask. Would I be nothing more than an obstacle in her way from now on? A burden from the Arena that wouldn't let her go on with her life at home?

"I don't know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get," she says.

Figures.

This time, I believe she's telling the truth. Then why does it hurt so much?

"Well, let me know when you work it out," I say, trying and failing to keep the pain from manifesting in my voice.

But she hears it and flinches, just a little.

Maybe I'm being too hard on her. Apart from the Games, we hardly know each other. Maybe we are just strangers brought together by circumstance, only to drift apart when there's nothing to force us together anymore. Curtain falls and we drop the act and nothing is left.

But for me, it wasn't an act. The prospect of nothing looms darker and bleaker than the danger of death we'd escaped together.

By faking love, on her part.

I was ready to die for her, but she saved me, she kept my heart beating.

For her, always for her.

I wasn't faking.

Now I'm ready to live for her, but if she doesn't really want me to…

If she kept me alive only to cast me aside, if she kept my heart beating only to break it herself…

I don't know if I can handle such a victory.

* * *

><p><strong>004. Runner-up?<strong>

_Would the things I've said and done  
>Matter any more?<em>

/

And drift apart we did, almost as if nothing ever happened. Almost as if we hadn't saved each other's life and sanity.

Until another part of the Games, the Victory Tour, inevitably brought us back together.

We had t_o play_ lovers again, and the stakes were so much higher.

It was time to fake ultimate decisions.

/

When I asked Katniss to marry me, she said _yes_.

Right according to the script.

It should have been the crowning moment of my life, the most beautiful victory, and a dream come true.

Yet every circumstance turned it into the cruelest nightmare.

The veiled fear and regret and reluctance in her eyes. The Capitol stage surrounded by Capitol audience. The hint of blood and roses and poison and _threat_ in the smile President Snow congratulated us with.

He forced Katniss to agree. She wouldn't have agreed otherwise.

We are being brought together by the most unpleasant circumstances, that's all.

Somehow, it hurts more than as if we never truly met.

_Was the whole charade worth it?_

/

She disappears into the woods on the very first Sunday after our arrival from the Victory Tour. I guess she has some explaining to do.

/

I know something has gone wrong the moment I find her ambling home, looking broken and distraught. I know something is going terribly wrong the moment we hear the sick, ominous sound from the Town Square. Almost forgotten as an official punishment. Always raw in my mind, Mother used to like her belt. The sound of _whipping_.

I know Katniss shouldn't investigate, and she knows she has to.

Only a few offenses warrant such a punishment, and who committed one of them today?

She knows all too well.

Of course I can't stop her.

Katniss tears from my grasp and runs towards the Square. After confirming her worst fear - _or was it suspicion?_ - she careens through the crowd and throws herself between the new Head Peacekeeper and her… friend? Lover? Whoever the man I wanted to be her cousin really is to her. I have no idea, and don't know if she does either.

Should I even care?

But her actions are telling enough.

_She_ cares.

The whip strikes her and red life pours from the lash on her cheek as if she were crying tears of blood. For him.

She _cares_.

_Should I?_

I have no _real_ reason to.

Then I remember the wound she sustained while getting the medicine for me in the Arena, while _he_ had to watch and couldn't help, and start towards them.

Even if she chose him, even if she loved him all the time, and I was just a passing inconvenience along the way, I have to help her.

My place is by her side.

Unconditionally.

Even if I were to lose by helping her.

/

_Could I bear to lose her?_

* * *

><p><strong>005. Martyr?<strong>

_If there is a way  
>Take this cup away from me<br>For I don't want to taste its poison  
>Feel it burn me...<em>

/

Losing Katniss to a man she might love more, or _differently_, is nothing compared to losing her to _death_. Yet the Quarter Quell announcement promises just that. We'll be returning to the Arena.

Haymitch trusts me to protect her there, and I trust him to get her out.

This time, we can't count on tricking them to mercy.

This time, only one of us will survive.

/

And I need _her_ to survive.

I wouldn't want to live without her anyway, and I try every argument in my arsenal to persuade her. She wouldn't have it, though.

She tells me she needs me, and her wild-hungry-desperate kisses tell me she means it. For _real_.

In that very moment, I want to live for her more desperately than ever.

But that's impossible.

The lightning that strikes at midnight brings us back from our own little wonderful world to where we are. To a place where I will have to die for her greater life.

To the Arena.

/

Another stroke of midnight frees us from there.

Somewhere in the chaotic explosion of light, I see Katniss ascending to the hovercraft. Hopefully, to safety. I hope she will cherish my memory there.

Now I can die in peace.

/

Why is death always too much to wish for? What have I done so wrong that I never seem to deserve the peace it would bring?

Death doesn't take me. The Capitol gets me first.

I can't give them information. I can't give them names, numbers and plans. After some time, they have to figure it out.

And once they do, it doesn't matter.

They have _me,_ and they can use me against Katniss

Snow himself leers at me from a screen as the syringe filled with _shiny_ venom approaches my vein.

"Say goodbye to her memory, boy," he hisses.

_Say goodbye to her memory_.

_Oh no._

_They can't take _that_ from me_.

For Katniss's sake, no amount of suffering is too great, no death too terrible. But there would be no sense, no _nothing_ left if I were to forget I am dying for _her_…

_NO! I don't want to…_

_Take it away!_

_Give it to her! Let her forget me instead!_

/

Who is _she_?

_Why the hell was I protecting that little_…

* * *

><p><strong>006. Mutt?<strong>

_Kill me, take me now  
>Before I change my mind...<em>

/

Katniss Everdeen is a mutt. Real or not real? Not real.

She destroyed our district. Real or not real? Not real.

She wants me dead. Real or not real? Not real.

/

I tried to kill her. Real or not real? Real.

Real.

I am a mutt.

Twisted to destroy her.

I should never come near her.

_Nevermore_.

/

But the doctors from Thirteen pump poison out of my body, and I'm sent join her again. To fight with her on her last campaign. In her last Arena.

_Why?_

I'm not a mutt. But I tried to kill her. I might as well be.

/

I'm not a mutt.

I can't be.

But the others are calling, their deadly lure reverberates in the remnants of poison that must still circulate in my blood. Twisting me. Turning me away from her.

Turning me _against_ her.

She should kill me while I'm still holding on. I don't want to die a monster. I don't want to die insane and hating her.

I sink against the wall, covering my head as if I could hide from the evil raging within my body and mind.

"Leave me," I whisper. "I can't hang on."

"Yes. You can!" Katniss protests, crouching down to my level.

I shake my head. "I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them."

_The mutts. I am a mutt. Is she?_

My breath comes in gasps.

_No she isn't isn't isn't … she is the girl I love… can a mutt love?_

No, a mutt can only hurt hurt kill kill…

A mutt should be _killed…_

She is not a mutt!

And I...

Why can't she finally let me _die_ for her? Why wouldn't she accept the gift of my life that belonged to _her_ for so long? Why wouldn't she kill me?

She presses her lips against mine instead.

"Don't let him take you from me," she mutters as we pull away.

I don't want Snow to take me from her. I don't want him to take her from me…

"No. I don't want to . . ."

She clenches my hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me," she whispers. Her eyes are desperate, radiating a plea that can't go unanswered. _She_ doesn't want me to let go.

She's not a mutt. I'm not a mutt.

I love her.

How could I leave her, then?

"Always," I murmur.

* * *

><p><strong>001. Everything<strong>

_Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations,  
>tried for three years, seems like thirty…<br>Could you ask as much from any other man?_

/

Both of us have burned like the two loaves of bread from long ago. The old Panem has burned in the fire we'd inadvertently started, until freedom emerged from the ashes.

_But what remained of us?_

She was just a girl who desperately wanted to save her sister. I was just a boy who wanted to save the girl he had so inexplicably and inexorably fallen in love with.

She failed in the very end, and I could still fail every day.

I thought I'd saved her in the moment when she wanted to die most fervently, by letting her bite my flesh instead of the deadly nightlock capsule. But for a long time, it seemed that I saved her only for eternal heartbreak and suffering. The thought that I could have handed her slow damnation instead of salvation tortured me in sync with my own nightmares.

I _had _to save her.

We've both lost everything, except for each other and our dear mentor, who stayed sober enough to help us hold on as long as we didn't interfere with his drinking when he needed it to hold onto himself.

We were three Victors hovering dangerously above the abyss of loss, and Katniss was always closest to the edge.

I could still lose her, every day, every night, and the struggle of hope and fear was almost too much to bear.

But I withstood it for her.

_Always_.

/

The burned-out shell of the Girl on Fire warmed back to life with agonizing slowness, taking tentative steps forward and sleepwalking back again. She welcomed my company, but never acknowledged _anything_,

Even as she clung to me and kissed me I didn't know for _real_, I didn't know if she truly wanted _me_ there, or just blindly grasped for _anyone_. I was sad and tired of not knowing and terrified to ask, terrified to let my hopes soar too high for fear of being shot down.

/

But this time is different. She kisses me like back when she told me she _needed_ me, as if her life depended on it. On _me_. And there's nobody else to cloud her judgment, no thunder and lightning to stop us from living.

/

After, I finally dare to ask.

"You love me. Real or not real?"

Something flickers in her eyes as her gaze meets mine, a little spark of life. I already know what the answer will be.

„Real."

Real love. Her love.

It was worth coming to the tree and back, crawling to the grave and back; it was worth every burn and bruise and every drop of poison.

It was worth every sacrifice.

_How could I ever doubt it?_

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><p><strong>AN no2:**

I had to try it. At least once. Please feel free to hit the review button and tell me what you think.


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